Take a good look at the little bastids ... they appear to be pretty sweet. I'm very interested in their "SPS" straight plug, I wonder how they'll compare to the new small Dot Com cables?

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br>ranix

br>$5 a pop?? br> br>

br>Rex Coil 7

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ranix wrote:

$5 a pop??

Maybe.. seems to me they're still settling in on a few things. Best I can tell they've been working on the straight model for over a year (manufacturing issues, et al).

The new Dot Com cables are $8.00 each ... that's $4 per end plus a bit of cable.

I suppose if someone needs really short barreled plugs, cost becomes secondary. I know they've sold AT LEAST 20k units to guitar players over the last year. Twenty Thousand.

They also claim the straight plugs will have a changeable "color coding" thingy of some type. Sounds like o-rings to me .... like Dot Com's.

I know for certain that I have a need for a few of their right angle models. I'll have to see what's up with the straight ones before I even begin thinking about giving anyone my money for some.

Until the competition comes up with something as useful .... then I suppose "Five bucks, it is" ... (I'm talking at YOU Switchcraft!)

EDIT: I own a lathe and a mill, as well as being just short of a Master metalworker (kindof between a Journeyman and a Master) .... that said, I couldn't make them for less than $5 each.

I'm not tellin', I'm just sayin'. br> br>

br>ranix

br>these things should be free. There should be a giant fountain of 1/4" jacks in the center of town, with a waterfall of plugs next to it br> br>

br>ranix

br>yeah actually you're right, the switchcraft plugs like these are $8 each, these are actually very competitively priced. Bit of sticker shock on this connector, some of these are $13!! br> br>

br>Rex Coil 7

br>

ranix wrote:

yeah actually you're right, the switchcraft plugs like these are $8 each, these are actually very competitively priced. Bit of sticker shock on this connector, some of these are $13!!

Yuppity yup yup.

There is a ~system~ (I invented) of changing clipping diodes that uses right angle 1/4" plugs that are pre-loaded with different diodes that I developed back in 2005. I sold so many overdrive units that I'd outfitted with the changeable clipping diodes in right angle plugs that I'm not sure I can recall how many I sold. 300? Including over 2,000 (no typo ... 2k) of the diode-loaded right angle 1/4" plugs that went along with those OD pedals. Geez, I remember one customer of mine that actually wanted every single combination ... so I built him a wooden carrying panel with aluminum handles and an aluminum scribble strip. It had 24 of these special plugs.

Point is, I made a lot of them. Along the full on decade that I built those systems, I went through the arduous task of attempting to build a better wheel. I looked at EVERYONE'S right angle 1/4" plugs. At the end of the day, the Switchcraft right angle 1/4" plugs were the best combination of quality vs cost ... least expensive and best built. I ended up using Switchcraft 226 (TS) for little while, then I expanded the idea and began adding capacitors to the plugs inside of TRS plugs instead of TS plugs. So the tone control's center frequency capacitor was on the "TIP" circuit, and the clipping diodes are in the "RING" circuit. There were many combinations of center freq and clipping diodes, but this new design upped the costs since I now required the Switchcraft 236 (TRS).

So at the end of the day, I spent an entire decade fiddle dickin' around with right angle plugs, both TS and TRS. That said, I'm quite familiar with costs.

$5.00 per unit ain't shit. That's a really good price, ESPECIALLY for a premium right angle 1/4" TS plug that's super small and was designed for smaller, more manageable cable.

Regarding cable size, in the event it has gone unnoticed by readers that have checked out these new Squareplugs, the "400" series plugs are designed for "snug fit" of 4mm cable. The 500 series = 5mm cable, and of course the 600 series is designed for "snug fit" of 6mm cable.

This notion of "Snug Fit" is important, since the plug is designed for use without spending any time screwin' around with heat shrink tubing to act as strain relief.

That company really did it right. They took what they knew most folks were actually doing with (or in my case .. "doing to") right angle plugs, and applied those "facts" into the design.

This one image tells it all ...

So at $5 or so per piece, it's no wonder they've enjoyed sales of over 20k units to guitar players alone.

These new little plugs are not only small, but the cable they're designed for is also nice and small. Makes for a nice flexible assembly that takes up very little space in the end.

Applicable to us here in 5U 1/4" plug land? Of course. How many of us have rack assemblies with actual rack gear in them that have absolute HAIRBALLS behind the panels? Many of us. Not only rack gear, but also those of us that use right angle plugs on the front of our modulars as low profile "faux normalizing". I know I do that, as well as many others within our tribe (see Tom Szakaly of "Noddy's Puncture" fame 1960s R. A. Moog modular that he's rigged up for actual live performance use ... loads of prepatched connections using right angle plugs).

It's parts and pieces like these that encourage new designs in hardware, as well as new ways of thinking not previously within reach of configuring our hardware.